The tournament will be held Saturday, March 10, at First Baptist Tulsa's Student Center (403 S. Cincinnati Ave.).

Registration fee is $30 for a team of six players. Youth and families of all ages are invited to participate! Players under the age of 18 must have parental permission. Youth and adults will compete together. Children under the age of 12 are encouraged to enjoy the tournament as spectators.

Register your team and download your release forms at www.yst.org/dodgeball.

Want to join the fun from the sidelines? Spectator tickets are available at the door for $2 each.

Safe Place will be onsite to provide information and resources for youth. T-Town Tacos will roll in at lunch time to sell their famous street tacos! Souvenir T-Shirts are available for purchase onsite. Cash and credit cards are accepted.

All sales and registration fees support the crucial work of Youth Services of Tulsa.

Shout out to Tina Parkhill who made Tulsa Worlds People to Watch article on Dec 31, 2017.

Tina and her husband Lance are chairing the YST Blank Canvas fundraising event for 2018. Tina is a very diversified individual who not only participates with YST but many organizations and even runs her own business.

Youth Services wrapped up the holiday season by hosting our annual Gifts of Hope celebration for Tulsa's at-risk and homeless youth. It warmed our hearts to see so many happy faces getting to experience this special holiday (for some, the first holiday to celebrate in years).

YST hosted parties for two of our programs, Street Outreach and Transitional living, at our Youth Activity Center. These parties were a huge success in providing holiday cheer to many of Tulsa's youth in need. With the help of Tulsa and the surrounding communities, we were able to present holiday gifts to 427 youth this year. This record setting high would not have been possible without your help!

We would like to thank all of our donors who participated this year, along with everyone who had volunteered this holiday season. A special Thank You goes out to Darby Equipment of Tulsa, QuikTrip’s QT for Kids Committee, Ernst & Young Tulsa, and local groups that were kind enough to hand-knit hats, gloves, and scarves.

YST’s Transitions program just celebrated an assortment of graduations of its clients. During the 2016-17 school year, 15 young people graduated from high school, alternative high school, tech school or an extended internship.

“The Transitions program averages 40 residents at any given time,” says Jordan Westbrook, YST’s Transitions Coordinator. “Close to 90 percent of our residents are involved in work or education. These recent graduates in particular are perfect examples of how the Transitions program provides much more than just housing. The support we provide young people to enter into productive adulthood is evident and clear through their accomplishments.”

Chasity is part of the most recent group of graduates. She recently completed her Associate’s at Tulsa Community College, and will enroll at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater this fall. She credits her participation in the Transitions program with changing her outlook on the future.

“It’s made a very positive impact on my life,” she says. “Before, I thought I wouldn’t be able to handle college. I had too much family stress. Too much of this and too much of that. The case managers helped me learn how to alleviate a lot of family stress from not setting boundaries. They helped me work through some things.”

Chasity’s situation wasn’t an uncommon one. During her adolescence, she dealt with home instability and the absence of parents. She took on responsibility for her younger family members, both financially and in terms of caretaking.

She was on the verge of living in her car when she applied to the transitions program.

“I remembered YST from Workforce. I’d visited there when I was 16,” Chasity says. “They got me in really quick, which I was happy about. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Her new apartment afforded her a “place of calm.”

“Before, if I wanted any type of calmness, I had to go for a walk down by the river,” she says. “There were nights I didn’t want to go home because I didn’t want to deal with the stress. When I got in the program, everything calmed down for me. It encouraged me to go back to college.”

Now, she’s ready to take the next step. She’s looking for places to live in Stillwater, and plans to major in Marketing. She plans to someday own a business and has a lot of ideas about what kind. “I want to do something I’m passionate about and enjoy.”

She is grateful for what she got out of the Transitions program.

“If you want to be successful. If you want to do better and put yourself in a better position, you’ll benefit from the program. They have so many resources. Once you get a job, you can save so much money. If you had to pay for your own place, you’d be living paycheck to paycheck. You have the opportunity to set yourself up for the future.

“They encourage you when you’re down. If you don’t know what direction you want to go, they won’t make the choice for you, but they’ll help you figure it out. The YST staff, what we have offered to us, it’s a kind of security. It gives me someone to go to if I don’t know what to do.”

Jordan describes Chasity as the perfect Transitions program participant.

“She was a little lost, and searching for stability and support,” says Jordan. “The program was able to provide her with much more than just housing. She utilized all the resources TLP offers.

“Chasity is helpful to other youth in the program. She makes them feel welcome and supported. She has a strong relationship not just with her case manager, April, but with all the Transitions program staff. It’s not uncommon for anyone who happens to be working that day to come out and greet her.

“She’s a perfect example of how the Transitions program can provide youth with the support needed to eventually begin their journey as a productive adult.”

June 30, 2017, Tulsa -- Modus transported a mother and her two youth to an assessment appointment with the Youth Services of Tulsa First Offender program. They were the first official passengers of the new program, and they would not have been able to receive services without the ride.

Modus is a two-pronged transportation solutionfor teens operated in partnership between Youth Services of Tulsa and the Tulsa Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. It is funded in part by a social innovation grant from the Tulsa Area United Way.

Modus was born out of need. In the Tulsa area, 15 percent of teens trying to get social services can’t because of inadequate transportation. They don’t get the help they need because they can’t get there. That’s 6,000 teens who suffer with decreased physical and mental health, have poorer educational outcomes and lower employment rates.

Modus enables teens to access their social service and medical appointments, but also ensures they know how to use the city’s transit system. Modus does this with two approaches which complement one another: Modus and ModusEd.

At its core, Modus is a volunteer-based transportation service that ensures teens get to their appointments consistently, on-time and safely. Modus provides transportation for teens to access social services by utilizing trained volunteers in their own vehicles to drive clients to appointments. The service is for teens who are accessing appointment-based social services, such as doctors, dentists, counseling/therapy, school enrollment and job training.

Modus rides are free to the teen passenger. Out of the 76 youth serving agencies in Tulsa, 75% provide some sort of client transportation (bus tokens, gas cards, mileage reimbursement, taxis, etc.). Modus provides a more effective and cost efficient alternative for these organizations.

ModusEd is an in-school transit training program that ensures teens know how to use Tulsa’s existing transit options to get to school, part-time jobs and higher education opportunities. Modus has partnered with Tulsa Public Schools and Tulsa Transit to increase our impact. ModusEd provides a customized 20-minute training which includes a Transit Passport and hands-on in-class experience with a transit expert to every TPS Freshman student. Tulsa Transit will offer free bus rides to any TPS high school student during the school year.

To learn more, or to schedule a ride, contact Leslie Neal at LNeal@modustulsa.org or visit www.ModusTulsa.org.

National Safe Place Week Celebrates Safe Place Program for Youth

Tulsa, Okla. March 17, 2017 – National Safe Place Network (NSPN) is pleased to announce March 19-25, 2017, as National Safe Place Week. The nationally recognized week serves to increase awareness about the Safe Place program, which brings together businesses and volunteers to provide help and safety for youth facing abuse, neglect, bullying or serious family problems.

“Unfortunately, young people face troubling issues in today’s world and it’s up to all of us to offer solutions, places where youth can go to get help,” said Laurie Jackson, President / CEO for NSPN. “National Safe Place Week is the perfect opportunity for communities across the country to assess and strengthen their safety net for youth.”

It is estimated that more than one million youth run away from home each year due to abuse, neglect, family conflicts and other issues. The Safe Place program is an option for young people who feel they have nowhere to turn.

Safe Place consists of a national network of nearly 20,000 partnering businesses and community locations – such as fast-food restaurants, convenience stores, fire stations, public buses, and libraries – that display the Safe Place sign in their windows. As youth enter the designated Safe Places and ask for help, trained staff members connect them to the appropriate youth shelter for assistance. National Safe Place Week recognizes participating Safe Place locations and volunteers for their unwavering dedication to the safety and well-being of at-risk youth.

The Safe Place program, partners with businesses and community organizations such as to provide immediate safety and support for local youth. Safe Place site locations include QuikTrip stores, Fire Stations, EMSA ambulances, Tulsa Transit buses and Tulsa City-County Libraries.

“Last year, more than 2,700 youth learned about Safe Place through presentations in the community and at local schools,” says David Grewe, YST executive director. “More than 115 of those youth accessed a Safe Place and received the help they needed in a crisis.”

The Safe Place program has helped more than 330,000 youth since its inception in 1983 and currently serves more than 1,400 communities across the country. It is managed by 133 youth agencies in 37 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to Safe Place sites, youth may also access immediate help via TXT 4 HELP, a text-for-support service for youth in crisis. Teens can text the word “safe” and their current location (address, city, state) to 69866 and receive a message with the closest Safe Place location and the number for the local youth shelter. Users also have the option to text interactively with a mental health professional for more help.

About National Safe Place Network

National Safe Place Network (NSPN) provides quality training and technical support for youth and family service organizations across the country. Along with being a leading membership organization offering tailored organizational development, training and professional development packages, NSPN also operates the nationally-recognized programs Safe Place, Runaway and Homeless Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center (RHYTTAC), and Human Trafficking: Recognition, Respect, Response (HTR3). To learn more, please visit www.nspnetwork.org or www.nationalsafeplace.org.

Want to help? Youth Services needs Safe Place volunteers. Interested persons age 21 or older should contact Sarah Beers, Safe Place Coordinator, at sbeers@yst.org or 918.382.4479 to sign up for free training.

Cake-ing A Difference

Every month, the T-Town Cake Club delivers works of art to the YST front desk. That art comes in the form of masterfully decorated cakes and cupcakes meant for the YST Street Outreach birthday party.

Spearheading the effort is Susan Bohannon, and she’s got a thing about cakes. In a previous life, Susan worked with children at Children’s Medical Center in Bartlesville. Every so often, or maybe quite often, she’d bake a cake for a co-worker’s birthday or some other special occasion. She excelled at the decorating, and she enjoyed doing it.

More than once, she was asked why she wasn’t in the business of baking and selling cakes. Why not? So she started looking around at brick and mortar locations to do such a thing. Turns out, renting a space is expensive, kind of scary, and she could bake a perfectly good cake at home.

Except that at the time, it was illegal in Oklahoma to sell a cake baked in your home. Not to let a thing like legality stand in her way, Susan decided to get the law changed. She found a state representative who would support her, then wrote a Bill.

Passing the bill took five years and hundreds of cupcakes handed to state senators. “Maybe that had something to do with it.

"Once it became legal, I opened up a home bakery,” she says. “I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Susan likes to bake, mind you. Not cook. “I think most people either really like cooking or baking. I can cook, but … I just put in stuff until it tastes right.”

But baking … that hits her sweet spot. She’s especially fond of having customers who trust her to come up with something great, even if she doesn’t know what they’re talking about. She remembers one time someone ordered a Harry Potter cake. They wanted a golden snitch on it. She had to look it up.

She relishes the variety of creating something new every time. “I really don’t like to make the same cake twice.”

Most of her favorites have been cakes she’s made for YST, including one that looked like a swimming pool, a grill that actually lit up like glowing coals and all the different Chinese New Year cakes she’s done over the years.

“The best part is seeing someone’s face when they see their cake,” she says. “I just love that.”

Susan’s connection to YST could’ve started with YST Director David Grewe. She met him way back when he worked as a therapist at Children’s Medical in Bartlesville. But that wouldn't be true.

“My passion has always been kids,” she says. “I love the teen population.”

After home caking became legal, Susan had a hand in forming the T-Town Cake Club. She hit upon the idea of doing something for the community through the club, and with her propensity for helping youth, she contacted YST. She visited, took the tour.

“Something about Street Outreach grabbed my heart,” she says. She asked some questions and discovered that street outreach hosted a monthly birthday party. It seemed like a perfect fit for the cake club.

That was three years ago, and Susan and the club still reliably deliver cakes and snacks for the party.

“It’s kind of dwindled down, but I made a commitment, and I take that seriously. I think it’s really important that people feel special on their birthday. If I can make one of these kids feel special just by making a cake, why would I not do that?”

She also believes in YST as an organization.

“I know some of the staff. I’ve seen them with the kids. They do an amazing job. And when you donate money to the organization, it goes where they say it will,” she says. “All I have to say is, ‘I have a youth in need. Can you help this person?’ And they’re right on it.”

Susan also participates in Gifts of Hope every year.

“It’s such a needy population. It’s hard being a kid under the best of circumstances, but when you don’t have a family or support … I can’t imagine.”

SAN FRANCISCO (October 6, 2016) - Today REDF announced its inaugural Social Enterprise for Jobs (SE4Jobs) Accelerator cohort of emerging leaders. The selected 18 participants, recognized from among more than 50 applicants across the nation, run double-bottom line businesses that support people facing the greatest barriers to employment. Program participants will apply skills to grow their social enterprises so they can impact more lives.

“Our Accelerator program is the first of its kind created to develop the future leaders of the social enterprise field on a national scale,” says Carla Javits, REDF CEO and president. “We want to strengthen the ability of social enterprise leaders to scale up their efforts to create jobs and provide support to people overcoming serious employment barriers like homelessness, incarceration, substance use and mental health struggles so they can be job-ready and achieve long-term employment success.”

Program participants will receive expert guidance on core business competencies and employee support programs, as well as the opportunity to build peer networks. The SE4Jobs Accelerator is an extension of REDF’s national Social Enterprise for Jobs network that was created in 2011 and is aligned with REDF’s national expansion and commitment to developing regional social enterprise ecosystems. The SE4Jobs Accelerator will be delivered in partnership with the Points of Light Civic Accelerator (CivicX), a national startup boot camp and investment fund for for-profit and nonprofit “civic ventures” that engage people to solve critical social issues.Since 2012, the Civic Accelerator has supported over 250 social entrepreneurs from across the country to scale their solutions to pressing social issues.

“We are excited to expand our impact and bring our curriculum and learning to the REDF SE4Jobs Accelerator, as we partner to train and support leading innovators building sustainable solutions to workforce development,” said Ayesha Khanna, founder of the Points of Light Civic Accelerator.

Below is the list of the 18 participants in our first Social Enterprise for Jobs Accelerator cohort:

“Participating in the REDF SE4Jobs Accelerator means access to mentors, entrepreneurs and content experts who truly understand our business model and will propel us to the next stage of growth,”said Sabrina Mutukisna, founder and CEO of Town Kitchen. “The heft and experience of REDF and particularly of SE4Jobs represents, for us, a huge repository of experience and expertise, as well as a ready-made pool of peers,” added Bettie Kirkland, Executive Director of Project Return.

In addition to supporting growth and providing valuable peer assistance for participants, the program will help those most in need of another chance in life. "Being part of the REDF SE4Jobs Accelerator cohort is going to be a game changer for Good Soil Industries,” said Chrissy Padilla Birkey, Executive Director, Good Soil Industries. “In the last year we have seen the need for second chance jobs increase in our community, and need all the help we can get to meet the demand.”

The SE4Jobs Accelerator program will be offered annually with the next application period opening in mid-2017.

About REDF

REDF creates jobs and employment opportunities for people facing the greatest barriers to work – like young people who are disconnected from school or work, people who’ve been homeless or incarcerated, and those with mental health or substance use challenges. Founded in 1997 by George R. Roberts (KKR), REDF provides funding and business expertise to mission-driven organizations around the country to launch and grow social enterprises, which are businesses with a “double bottom line” that make money and reinvest their revenue to employ and support more people. For more information, follow REDF on Twitter at @REDFworks or visit http://redf.org/redf-se4jobs-accelerator/.

Some mistakes have the potential to impact their life in significant ways. Some mistakes can set a bad precedent, especially those that break the law. And that’s where Youth Court comes in.

Youth Court, offered in Tulsa and Owasso, is a collaborative effort among Youth Services, the Juvenile Bureau, area municipal courts, and the members of the Tulsa County Bar Association. It provides an opportunity for 9th-12th graders to serve as members of a court, giving first-time juvenile offenders an opportunity for a hearing conducted by their peers. Students perform courtroom roles including judge, prosecuting attorney, defense attorney, clerk and bailiff.

When a teen commits a misdemeanor offense, the presiding juvenile court judge has the option to send the case to Youth Court. Typical cases include: shoplifting, petit larceny, curfew violations or vandalism, and other low-level offenses.

It can happen to any adolescent. Aubrey, a Tulsa-area youth, recently had a trial in Youth Court for a minor violation. She was out late with a friend. The friend, who was 18 at the time, was pulled over for a traffic offense, and Aubrey was cited for curfew violation. When she appeared before the judge, she was referred to Youth Court. She was questioned and judged by other youth.

For Aubrey, the Youth Court experience was positive.

“I had to apologize to my dad in front of the court, and I was placed on probation,” she says. “I think it was fair. They were super understanding about the circumstances, and it was much less intimidating because I knew the students I was speaking to instead of adults.”

Aubrey says it’s an experience she’ll remember, which is the point of Youth Court.

“The hope is that the young people will not get further involved with the justice system” says Julie Stilwell, YST coordinator, First Offender and Youth Court programs.

"It's important to have an alternative to traditional prosecutorial juvenile justice," says Julie. "Having a record today isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. It can have a negative impact long after they turn 18. It can hinder them from applying to the military, passing the nursing board, or applying to law school. Small offenses they had when they were 16 come back and bite them, and it isn’t necessarily fair.”

Youth Court came from research. It was shown youth speaking to other youth was more impactful than hearing the same information from adults.

“Though we’ve all been teens, we’re not anymore. We’ve forgotten to a degree,” says Julie. “Kids who are still teens can talk to each other in a way we can’t. They’re in that time of life with each other.”

Youth volunteers, like Jaylee, a senior at Glenpool High School, are vital to the success of Youth Court. Jaylee volunteered as a freshman, and has participated ever since.

“I really enjoy it because I feel like I’m helping kids,” says Jaylee, “especially the younger ones. We help them understand their actions have consequences and even though the decisions they made to get into Youth Court are minor, if they continue on that path, it could be really bad. I feel like I’m helping open their eyes.

“You encourage them. You tell them they can do better, that they don’t have to keep acting up. I think it helps. I really see it with their family members. Youth Court doesn’t just impact the adolescent, but their whole family. The families take it very seriously.”

Julie says most sentences involve a courtroom apology from the youth to their parents.

“Some of the most impactful moments in Youth Court are between the young person and their parent. They’re sitting in the stand, facing their parents and the attorneys. They’re sworn in, and then they explain in detail where they went wrong. Sometimes, new information the parent didn’t know comes out.

“When they walk out of the courtroom, there’s better understanding between both parties. Let’s say this. The car ride home is much better than the one on the way there. Positive family interaction has been shown to be an ingredient that helps adolescents make more positive choices,” says Julie.

“As you’re strengthening families, you’re strengthening a young person’s ability to make better choices when they’re out in the world.”

Youth Court is made possible by a grant from the Oklahoma Bar Association. If you're a Tulsa-area high school student who would like to volunteer for Youth Court, contact Julie Stilwell at jstilwell@yst.org or 918.382.4477. The next training dates are Oct. 25 and Oct. 27, 6-7:30pm.

Presented by the Brookside Business Association, Taste of Brookside returns Thursday, August 11, for its fifth year of food, wine and fun!

Walk your way through Tulsa’s favorite entertainment district as you sample eats and drinks from more than 15 of Brookside’s finest establishments. Each participating restaurant will try to blow your mind with samples of their best dishes, and YOU decide who wins Best Dish!

The evening begins with a wine reception at Pohlenz Cucine Moderne. Drop in, get your wristband, sample as much as you can, then come back and vote!